


legerdemain

by descartes



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Fake Marriage, M/M, unfinished work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 01:18:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1570610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/descartes/pseuds/descartes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which arthur and dom wake up (and live together and get) married.</p>
            </blockquote>





	legerdemain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amfiguree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amfiguree/gifts).



> unfinished comment fic from way back when.

Arthur's already tidied up most of the suite by the time Cobb surfaces from the dream. He doesn't have to look to recognize the grim satisfaction on Cobb's face -- everything Cobb does nowadays is grim in some way.

"Where are we heading?" he asks, passing an alcohol wipe for Cobb's wrist.

Grim satisfaction gives way to merely grim. "Germany."

Arthur frowns, thinking through their options even as he checks one last time that their mark is still unconscious. "I can call someone up for that."

Cobb nods, and they leave the now-pristine hotel room -- save for the warm body curled up in the middle of the bed -- unnoticed.

*

Due to his career choices, Arthur doesn't carry too many prized possessions. What he does have instead are objects that he will guard with his life, mostly because their mere possession will definitely guarantee a life sentence in several countries. The PASIV device in its bulletproof briefcase, which he isn't supposed to have. A pouch of highly complex pharmaceuticals that have never undergone rigorous clinical testing. A cellphone with a heavily-ciphered address book of contacts he isn't supposed to know. And then there's Cobb. Aiding and abetting a fugitive is the least of his worries.

*

His contact promises him what he needs in two days, so he and Cobb spend their enforced downtime refining their plans in a rented room that's a significant downgrade from the one they've left behind. There's only one bed, a narrow uncomfortable mattress on a rusted frame, and atrocious water pressure in the bathroom. Cobb hunches over plans and keeps the disposable cellphone Arthur's acquired always in his sight. Arthur buys take-out and little trinkets he can slip into his luggage next time he has a chance to go back Stateside. They take turns sleeping in long enough bursts that exhaustion retreats, albeit temporarily.

On the afternoon of day two, Arthur is doing routine maintenance on the dream machine in the cramped living room when he hears a thump on the door. He counts to five, then rises to retrieve the stained brown envelope from the hallway. Cobb emerges from the bedroom, shirtsleeves rolled up and a streak of dust on his forehead, as Arthur pulls out the new passports and a sheaf of other official-looking documents. 

"I've booked our flight for 11," Arthur tells him absently as he checks the pages of the passports. Vert's a reliable contact, but nasty surprises are a given in the circles they travel in.

Cobb is saying, "Good," and "Cobol's wired us some more funds," but Arthur finds his attention caught by a line in the second passport, the one with his own face staring back up at him. He frowns, double-checks Cobb's passport information and-- no, he definitely isn't imagining what he's seeing: Arthur's new name is Arthur White-Smith, Dom's is Dominic Smith and the top sheet of paper is a marriage certificate.

"Look. You told me to make sure no unwanted attention gets directed at your partner. I did just that."

"How is this not bringing us unwanted attention?"

"It's called misdirection, Arthur. Keeps them focused on one thing-- everything else doesn't matter."

Arthur bites back his next retort and ends the call, knowing the smug bastard's too caught up in his own cleverness to listen. Besides, there's too little time to get new documentation done, and Vert's craftsmanship is still as sadly impeccable as always.

*

Cobb takes to the news of their sudden change in domestic situation remarkably well. There's a moment where Arthur's sure-- but finally Cobb's mouth quirks up (grim amusement, Arthur thinks) and he plucks his passport from Arthur's grasp, saying, "This is fine."

"Are you sure?" Arthur asks. He's been a bystander to several variations on the theme of Cobb's all-encompassing grief, some truly epic in proportions (the Danvers job comes easily to mind), others nonetheless painful in their smallness (Cobb watching a pair of little children playing in a sandbox, Cobb keeping the balconies in his rooms shuttered). He used to think he knows Cobb, but he's come to accept that the Dominic Cobb he knows is a foreign country.

Cobb repeats, "It's fine," and Arthur doesn't ask again. He still has intravenous lines to sterilize.

*

Arthur asks their taxi driver to turn up the radio on the drive to the airport, and as prime-time radio chatter spills from crappy speakers, he turns to Cobb and says, "Here. Just in case." He takes out a small cardboard box from his pocket, fishes through a wad of cotton and drops two rings into his open palm. They're gold, completely unremarkable, and Arthur feels a twinge of pride that it had taken him less than an hour to find a pair in their sizes. 

Cobb takes his, fingernails grazing Arthur's skin, and slides it down to his left ring finger's first knuckle. The pale band where his real wedding ring used to reside is still visible, but only if one knows where to look. Finally, Cobb says wryly, "By the power invested in me," and puts the ring on properly. He watches Arthur as Arthur follow suit, fumbling a little, unused to the reminder of the ring's weight. 

*

Vert is still worth the extorbitant sum Arthur's paid him; they breeze through check-in and are settled into their seats on the plane without anyone lingering too long at Cobb's face. The flight attendant asks if they'd like some refreshments.

Arthur says, "A glass of water, thanks," and she nods towards Cobb, who's staring at something out the window. "And your spouse?"

Before Arthur can do something monumentally stupid like blurt out, "He's not my spouse," Cobb's paying attention again and he smiles at her, his charming trust-me smile, and slips a hand in the crook of Arthur's elbow, his ring discreetly on display. "The same for me."

The flight attendant's smile softens briefly before she moves on.

Arthur is unnerved. He isn't as good as Cobb is when it comes to deception, but he isn't a tourist either, and he doesn't understand why he's thrown off-guard that the flight attendant did exactly what she should be doing.

Before he can start figuring out why, find out if this newfound oddness will affect the way he does his job, he's startled from his thoughts by the plane's safety manual being dropped on the tray in front of him.

Cobb squeezes his arm, gives him a rare genuine smile, and bows his head over a glossy travel magazine.

Arthur settles down to critique the illustrated evacuation procedures. Cobb's hand is very warm, strangely familiar.

*

The text message from a blocked number is waiting for them in Stuttgart.

_25m_ , it reads, and Arthur passes his phone to Cobb. His face contorts, anguished and frustrated, for the briefest of seconds.

"Head on to the hotel," Cobb says as he returns the phone.

"No backup?" Arthur asks. Cobol's footmen are uniformly unpleasant and trigger-happy, and Cobb's not exactly the model of restraint, moreso now than ever before.

Cobb shakes his head. "They want to shake us up. I can handle it."

"If you say so," Arthur murmurs, handing over the keys to their rental.

*

"Reservation for Smith," Arthur tells the front desk at Le Méridien.

The woman looks at her monitor and types something. "One bed or two, sir?"

Mr. Smith and Mr. White-Smith have been married for nearly two years. Stuttgart is the third stop on their longed-for around-the-world trip. Mr. Smith is an entrepreneur, Mr. White-Smith a health and safety inspector. Cobb had made the story up at the arrival area while Arthur worked out their shopping list in his head.

Arthur thinks about the ambush in Shanghai and the shoot-out in Liverpool. Companies engaging in dream espionage may as well open their job postings with 'Paranoids Wanted'. 

"Just one," he replies. He's slept in worse places than a five-star hotel sofa.

*

He can sweep a room for bugs in his sleep, has in fact learned to do it in his sleep -- that he finds two concealed among the PASIV spare parts Cobol's sent over is expected but still annoying. Arthur examines them with cursory interest and drops both in the toilet. They'll take it out of his paycheck, or they won't.

*

The alarm Arthur's set on his watch beeps. Ten minutes later, there's the faint scrape of a key card from the corridor, and Cobb strides in, pissed off but unmarked. He sits down heavily on the armchair beside Arthur and buries his hands in his hair. Arthur pushes the still-steaming cup of coffee across the low table; he'd have handed over some painkillers too, except both their body chemistries are fucked from all the Somnacin they've used injudiciously. 

"How bad?" he asks, placing his hands on typing position over his laptop. He likes high-end hotels for their high-speed Internet as much as for the dedicated laundry service and discretion. Arthur gets itchy when he doesn't get to check his many e-mail inboxes at least once everyday.

Cobb says, "Same bullshit. I stopped listening after the first sentence," and gulps most of the coffee in one mouthful. He grimaces, but raises the cup to Arthur in mute appreciation. Cobb mixes the best hotel room coffee Arthur's ever tasted, miraculous considering the state of the average complimentary tray that is provided, but mini-bar exploration as of late tends to be of the alcoholic kind, when Cobb thinks Arthur doesn't notice (or maybe doesn't care enough if Arthur does).

Arthur snorts, both at Cobb's words and a message from an over-excitable ex-client that he deletes. Should've paid attention to the extraction training.

*

Several hours later, Arthur's completed dozens of little tasks that make his and Cobb's secret life of crime bearable, if not actually better, including a brisk shower to ease his lingering jetlag. The briefcase PASIV device is concealed under the sink, several of its core components -- each piece in itself useless without the others -- hidden in nooks and crannies that nonetheless make them easy for Arthur to retrieve. Dom's taken their files for the job into the bedroom, along with the spare ammo for both their guns. Arthur does a quick circuit of the outer rooms on socked feet and as an afterthought, hangs the _Do Not Disturb/Bitte nicht stören_ sign on the doorknob. 

The bedroom lights are dimmed, but Arthur expects Cobb to have commandeered the study table, photographs and diagrams and dioramas made from office supplies spread out all around him. Instead, Cobb is lying fully-dressed on the bed, eyes closed, breathing deeply. All that's missing is a clear line of tubing connecting Cobb to a dream machine for it to look like a normal night on the job. 

Cobb, Arthur notices, keeps only to one on side, as though his body had never unlearned sleeping with someone else.

Taking off Cobb's shoes without waking him up is easy; it's all a matter of following the natural motions of Cobb's body as he briskly untangles the laces and gently placing the shoe on the floor. In Arthur's experience, many people get the first part right, but mess up when they toss the footwear and startle the sleeper. Cobb can stand a night sleeping in his socks and jacket.

Arthur is about to exit and settle down in the sofa with the spare pillow when-- "Arthur?"

"Yeah, Dom?" Damn. Cobb must have been sleeping more lightly than Arthur had estimated.

Fabric rustles as Cobb's head turns in his direction; it takes Arthur a moment before he realizes that Dom looks odd simply because somehow, the grimness is absent from his features. "There's enough space for you here."

Arthur tries not to fidget. "I don't mind sleeping on the couch."

Okay, the narrow-eyed glare that Cobb directs at idiotic trainees still stings even though it contains none of usual his contempt. Only the firm thought that there is only space for one person's melodrama in this partnership stops Arthur from throwing up his hands. "Fine," Arthur says, and steps back from the doorway.

He slides his waistcoat off, then his suspenders, then his tie, folding each piece neatly before placing them on a chair. He loosens the first two buttons of his shirt, runs a hand through his still-damp hair and sits at the edge of his side of the bed. When he glances at his watch out of habit, his eyes are caught by the ring he's still wearing. 

Arthur'd forgotten it. Or rather, had adapted to its presence so quickly that it had seemed so natural to him, a part of his skin like his button-downs or tailored jackets or his shoulder holster.

He runs a finger across the surface of the ring, thinking of nothing at all. His mind empty of his many concerns, calculations and ever-lengthening lists of utter and no consequence.

The bed dips as Cobb shifts -- he's out like a light again. Both of his hands are folded across his stomach. He, too, is still wearing the gold ring.

*

Arthur brushes his teeth. Each mouthful of water and foam he spits out is punctuated by the clatter of his totem on the bathroom countertop.

He'd woken up with Cobb's heat clinging to his side. Arthur'd reached out, an imprint of a pillow on Cobb's cheek beckoning him-- had stopped, slid out of bed, fishing out from his pocket the die that had dug into his thigh in the night.

*

Arthur, mouth tingling more from the vigorous brushing than the pseudo-mint toothpaste, leaves the bathroom to see two body-sized indentations on the unmade bed.

He finds Cobb on the sofa, blearily awake over pieces of his gun scattered over a sheet of the complimentary English-language newspaper. The sports section, Arthur notes. The rest of the paper is on the cushion, all the sections Arthur likes to skim -- front page, business, science, classified ads -- left intact.

"You should let me do that," Arthur says, eyeing the dark smudges on Cobb's cuffs.

Cobb squints at the dissembled parts as if they're projections that need to be bullied into obedience. "I can clean my own gun, Arthur."

"It's a firearm, not a jigsaw puzzle," Arthur retorts, but he recognizes the futility of his objection even as he says it.

He'll have to lift the gun from Cobb's possession and reassemble it properly later.

*

It takes Arthur a well-placed bribe and a hasty turn with a sewing kit (the devil's in the details, especially the shoulders of a borrowed jacket), but by five p.m. he's behind the wheel of their mark's hired car.

Charlotte Aigner is the chief programmer for a cybernetics start-up with a flagship project Cobol's been eyeing; it'd been weeks of work before Arthur and Cobb had pinpointed her as the source of the top-secret idea.

Arthur's cellphone vibrates silently in his pocket. It's Cobb's signal that he's met Aigner at the conference she's attending and slipped the slow-acting sedative into her drink.

Easing the car into traffic towards the convention center, Arthur starts his mental countdown timer.

*

Aigner is pleasant, if harried, and Arthur dispassionately watches from the rearview mirror as she yawns her way into unconsciousness.

His phone vibrates again; Cobb's secured a parking space in the hotel garage out of view of the security cameras.

Thank god for tinted windows and the discretion of luxury hotels.

*

("She's taking the train to Berlin next week," Arthur had told Cobb after he'd hacked into Aigner's e-mail and read her calendar. "It'll be more private than a public carpark."

Cobb had frowned. "We can do it at the hotel. No need for the train.")

*

It's a tight fit: three people, the PASIV device retrieved from the trunk and Arthur's preparation kit inside a idling sedan. Cobb sits next to Aigner in the backseat while Arthur pulls out the infusion lines and a pair of headphones. Two of the first he hands to Cobb, the second he clamps over his ears. Thumb hovering over his mp3 player's settings, he asks Cobb, "How long will this take?"

"Five minutes," Cobb says, ever confident, as he leans back with a faint squeak of leather.

*

Arthur opens his eyes to the palatial glass-and-steel lobby of a towering skyscraper. He immediately checks if Cobb (yes), his gun (yes) and his spare gun (wait for it-- yes) are with him. Aigner's had incomplete training in preventing extraction, making her the worst kind of mark.

Cobb's got a hand in his pocket, no doubt grimly admiring the feat of construction surrounding them, both his and the original architect's. He flicks an eye towards Arthur, says wryly, "Don't get yourself killed."

"Not unless I have to," Arthur agrees, just before they catch sight of Aigner making her way to the elevator bank.

*

Aigner remembers Cobb from Stuttgart, a representative from a company specializing in high-tech security systems. He'd seen Aigner's photo in a news article and didn't want to pass up the chance to introduce himself at the conference. They're having a pleasant conversation as they wait for an elevator, Arthur a discreet distance away, keeping watch for any sign of subconscious hostility.

They're one of the very few extraction teams willing to initiate real-life contact with their marks. Arthur's heard the arguments, has had them with Cobb when they'd been starting out: _it's too risky, the mark will tag you after, it's too much work, why go to all that trouble at all?_ But, watching as Cobb and Aigner chat about the Stuttgart conference, Arthur's come around to the realization that this reckless risk-taking is what makes Cobb's assertion that he is the best extractor in the world ring true. 

"--my partner enjoyed sightseeing, which was a relief," Cobb is saying, and Arthur starts, nearly crashing into the elevator operator. Neither Cobb nor Aigner notice; he's ducking his head in the kind of angle that Arthur knows practically screams, 'Ask me more!'

Sure enough, Aigner responds to the non-verbal cue and says, "I'm glad! Stuttgart was lovely that time of year. Where did she--"

"He," Cobb says, smooth as silk, and both Arthur and Aigner's eyes widen, but Arthur has a feeling her shock isn't for the same reason as his.

"I'm sorry for assuming, I shouldn't have," Aigner says quickly; Cobb soothes her with a brief smile. He holds up his hand and shows her the ring on his finger. "It's fine. We've been together for two years, but I'm still getting used to it myself."

The elevator jolts as it comes to a halt, but Arthur doesn't feel it. He steps behind a burly projection, suddenly afraid that Angier, or worse, Cobb might look up and see his face reflected in the polished chrome doors.

Cobb's ring gleams platinum, much like it had under the California sun during his and Mal's wedding day.


End file.
